Crypto Markets See Green Amid Talk of 'Forced Short Squeeze' on BitMEX

August 22: The crypto markets are seeing a second flush of green, with virtually all of the major cryptocurrencies seeing solid growth on the day, as Coin360 data shows.

Positive price momentum is a welcome respite from protracted bearish sentiment, although multiple crypto commentators are attributing the upswing to yesterday's announcement by leveraged crypto trading platform BitMEX that it would be halting trading for scheduled maintenance.

Bitcoin is trading at around $6,644 at press time, up almost 4 percent on the day, according to Cointelegraph's Bitcoin price index.

On the week, Bitcoin is now up 3.2 percent, and has closed its monthly losses down to around 11 percent.

Ethereum is trading around $285 at press time, up around 3.5 percent on the day.

On its weekly chart, Ethereum is 3.7 percent in the negative; on the month, losses remain at a stark 39 percent.

While Tezos saw a similar upwards spike in close keeping with the wider market, its valuation has since corrected back towards its week-long price range, which has been unusually consistent amid a distinctly volatile post-crash market picture.

Bitcoin dominance - or Bitcoin's share of total crypto market capitalization - is pushing back upwards to 53 percent, having slightly dropped down to 50.8 percent this weekend.

The alleged ripple effect of BitMEX trading on the wider market is sparking widespread discussions on crypto social media as being likely to adversely impact forthcoming decisions from US regulators on the approval of new crypto investment instruments.

Notably, in its second-time rejection of another BTC ETF application from the Winklevoss Twins this July, the SEC had stated the reason as being the largely unregulated nature of Bitcoin markets.